Story by Jon Stalnaker
AKA The Studebaker Dude
I remember wanting to read George Orwell’s novel “1984” just to prepare myself for what was on the horizon in the upcoming year. Being a self-proclaimed master procrastinator, I didn’t get around to it, but I’ve often wondered how many people actually did. It was written in 1949 and was a scary description of what life would be like at that juncture in time.
I was at a crucial point in my postal career that year. I had accepted a supervisor training position but made the decision to go back to the craft. I was told by all my well-meaning friends that I would never get another chance, but I proved them wrong. It wouldn’t be long before I would get back into management, and for good this time. Meanwhile, I felt the need to master the job of letter carrier and that is where I found myself in 1983. As a letter carrier, I received a clothing allowance every year. Having been a carrier for several years at this point, I had plenty of shirts and pants, all the necessary coats and inclement weather gear, and was able to focus my buying power on good shoes and socks. Now back then you could only wear black socks with the postal uniform and if you wore shorts like I did, the socks needed to be knee-high in length. After I got into management, I rarely wore those knee-high black socks, so I stashed them in the back of my sock drawer where they have resided for all these decades and moves.
I was followed on my mail route by a woman that worked at one of my business deliveries. She was taking random pictures of me delivering the mail. She gave me copies of the pictures and I stuffed them in a box and forgot about them. A few years later, I awoke in the middle of the night thinking about those pictures. My route had around 400 deliveries and she took pictures of me delivering the mail to some of them. I had purchased a house on my route and had been living there a few years when it dawned on me that I thought that one of the pictures she had given me was this one. I was delivering the mail to the very house that would later be my home. And I dug out the old photographs and sure enough, it was… That mailman is me during that era.
I went on the internet to see what was happening back in 1983 and it turns out that I couldn’t even have done that back then. It was 1983 when the internet was created. Even the handy little mouse that everyone takes for granted these days was just making its debut. The first US cellular network was launched that year. And Bill Gates introduced Windows Word 1.0, without which I would never have become a prolific writer. I’m just too lazy to type everything. Atari’s pong games were out, and Mario Brothers was released by Nintendo. And the first mobile phones were introduced. It was a different world back then that most people today cannot even fathom. Old people like me often pine for those simpler days when gas was less than a dollar per gallon. You could buy a new Mustang for about $6500 or a new Dodge truck for around $5500. Milk was $1.35/gal and rents were at a national average of $335/month. I’m sure it was much cheaper in Oklahoma. That may sound cheap, but the average income was only $21K per year and interest rates were 11%.
Other big news stories from that year were the successful maiden voyage of the Challenger space shuttle. It was only the second shuttle launch and the first space walk in 9 years. Sally Ride was the first American female astronaut to go into space. The Pioneer 10 spacecraft was the first to be sent out of our solar system. I suppose you could say it was sent to infinity and beyond.
Crack cocaine was developed in the Bahamas and soon made its appearance in the world of dangerous drugs in this country. Congress put together a special commission that released a report that condemned the Japanese internment during WWII. (Really, it took that long???) There was also the first publication of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes Aids. Yes, I remember a world where there was no such thing as Aids. There was a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Japan that caused a huge Tsunami that devastated the country. Prior to that, the only knowledge I had of a tsunami was learned from an episode of Gilligan’s Island. President Ronald Reagan created Martin Luther King Jr. Day that year, the same year that Vanessa Williams was selected to be the first Black woman crowned as Miss America.
I was surprised to see Amy Winehouse listed as a celebrity that was born in 1983. She is a member of the 27 Club, a group of artists that died at the age of 27. She joined the ranks of Robert Johnson, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Curt Cobain, and Jim Morrison, just to name a few. That means she has been gone for almost 13 years now. It certainly doesn’t seem that long ago. Aaron Rodgers was born in 1983 and so was our own Micah Choquette. Happy Birthday, Micah.
